What Parents Want

Parents never fail to amaze me. Well, I should say, the parents I tutor for never fail to amaze me. I have to ask myself sometimes, What do they want for their Children?? I work primarily for people who have enough money to afford private school (and a tutor, of course) and have extremely high ambitions for their offspring...but they express it in some very strange ways. Given the condition of public education in California, most of them opt for private schools, oftentimes shelling out more than a typical college tuition (sometimes over $30,000 EACH YEAR per child). What do they expect for this high price-tag? More intelligent children? No, children who Appear to be more intelligent...and let me tell you, looks can be deceiving. You would think that for this sort of investment they would be extremely concerned about the quality of education their darlings are receiving. And they are....to an extent.

One mom regularly decides how her sons are sons are performing in their classes by asking them, not what they have learned in class, not even what grade they got on a particular assignment or test, but rather if anyone did better than them... Who got the highest grade in the class? What was it? Who got the lowest? Ok, what did you get? How did the rest of the class do? She then proceeds to decide how well her son did based on the other kids in the class. Does she care that he learned the material? No, she cares that he did better than anyone else. What does she want? She wants her sons to always try to be the best (not necessarily to do their best, but to be the best). What does this communicate to her sons? 1) Your value is based on how well you perform compared to others (one son's nickname this year was Mr. 2.89...the other's was Mr. 3.5, Does this not seem incredibly disturbing to you??). 2) You're better than others if you get better grades. 3) Always be aware of your "rank" compared with others, and, of course, 4) Rank, not growth, is ultimately the most important thing.

Another mother came in this afternoon while I was tutoring her son and said, "If you don't have time to stay until he's finished with the assignment, could you just do it for him?" NO! Ok, so she regularly writes her sons' papers for them (an insult to the teacher, in my opinion, who clearly can tell the difference between a 9th or 11th grader's writing and his mother's who is a law-school graduate). Maybe they didn't teach ethics in law school when she was in college, but let's think about what this teaches her child. 1) I don't believe you'll do it well enough on your own. 2) It's more important to get a good grade than learn. 3) Its ok to cheat if it makes you come out ahead. And that's just the beginning. What does she want? She wants her sons to get into a good college. (But, what happens when they get there and she's not there to write their papers and do their homework for them?)

Over and over again I see parents complaining that their son or daughter "doesn't have a good _____ teacher" (fill in the blank, but in my experience, usually it's math). I've even seen teacher fired by parents who've banded together and complained. Now, I understand that there are some poor teachers out there, but the vast majority are incredibly talented (and incredibly over worked). These parents rarely stop to ask if their child is paying attention in class, taking notes, doing their homework, etc. If the child is not doing well, the first person to blame seems to be the teacher. After all, if I'm paying this much for school, I want to see A's on the report card. And that seems to be the teacher's job...to make sure all of their students receive good grades.

In fact, I have a student who's recent progress report came home with mostly C's and D's. He's a freshman in high school, and from what I remember, you basically have to work pretty hard at doing Nothing to get those kinds of grades. After emailing his teachers and discovering that he's continually being a distraction in class, is not taking notes and is incredibly disorganized so he can't find anything, his mother decided what he needs. To pay attention, get organized and take notes? No, of course not. He needs more tutoring. (I want to respond with " You've go to be kidding, we're already doing about 6 hours a week", but manage to make it come out a little more politely.)

One girl's parents rallied with others last year to have her math teacher fired. This year she's a freshman in high school and has the same teacher her brother had two years ago... they know he's a great teacher. Yet she's still doing poorly in math. Incidentally, she doesn't seem to be doing well in any subject this year. She recently had to write two short paragraphs for English class. The first was on the subject of Integrity. Her teacher had basically boiled down "integrity" to not cheating. She asked them to respond to "When is it ok to cheat? On a test? Copying a friend's homework?" My student decided that cheating on a test is not having integrity. When I asked her why, she replied "because you could get kicked out of school if you're caught." Would it be ok if you didn't get caught? I asked. That stumped her. She went on to say that it's ok to copy a friend's homework, but not someone's who isn't your friend. The second paragraph was about Courage and how it relates to Integrity and being Kind to others. She started by asking what Courage means (she's a freshman in high school, remember). I had her find a few basic definitions of the term and she seemed to understand it. I then asked her what types of people it takes Courage to be Kind to. Her response was, "nice people." It takes Courage to be Kind to Nice people???? Ok, in what situations do you think it takes Courage to have Integrity? That one really baffled her.

I think this is a problem throughout society. When we have a problem, generally our habit is not to look in the mirror and see what we can change. Rather, it is to look around and find someone to blame. I pity these children when they grow up and realize that the only way to succeed in the marketplace is through Hard Work. I'm sad that most of them have learned from their parents that short-cuts help you get ahead. I fear for them when they have their first job and realize that their boss doesn't tolerate cheating and there is no one else to blame for poor performance. I wonder how many of them will jump from job to job because they've always been encouraged to find a way around hard work.

What do we do when it's Parents who are teaching their children to cheat? To compare themselves with others in a fierce competition in which second place is not acceptable and one must do anything to avoid it? When Problems are blamed on anyone but oneself? When Success is achieved at any Cost? I think that is what most of them want for these children: Success and Happiness.

I know, although this blog has been far too long, I've only touched the surface with these incredibly disturbing attitudes. I'm sure there will be more. Every now and then, on days like today, this job makes me really depressed...usually it's because I feel that these Children who have had a huge financial investment poured into their education are being short-changed by the very people who make that investment, by parent's whose expectations are simultaneously too high and too low (in the wrong places). I can only try to counteract these attitudes by focusing on learning, not grades, on responsibility, not blame.

Good Night.


P.S. Is anyone interested in tutoring in the Bay Area?? Let me know. Seriously. I have more work than I can do, and honestly, despite everything I've said, most of the children I work with are charming.